$25 million pesticide clean-up 

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has voted $25 million United States dollars to clean up and safely dispose of over 50,000 tonnes of obsolete pesticide waste stockpiled throughout Africa. PAN UK with the World Wide Fund for Nature Toxics Programme was the instigator of the Africa Stockpiles Programme (ASP). ‘African communities have suffered far too long from the adverse effects of pesticide contamination,’ said Mark Davis, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's director of obsolete pesticide operations.
    Virtually every African country has stockpiles of obsolete pesticides that have accumulated over the past several decades. Over fifty per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa live below the poverty line and many communities are denied access to a healthy and safe environment. Barbara Dinham, director of PAN UK, says that ‘Clearing out obsolete pesticide stocks, and ensuring this level of pollution is never again allowed is the first major achievement of the new international Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).’
    In officially endorsing phase one of the ASP programme the GEF Council funding pledge was made with the understanding that US$35 million in co-financing will be contributed by government aid agencies, the private sector, and other donors. A condition of funding will be ratification of the global Stockholm Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Convention. PAN will be working with governments to encourage joint ratification of the twin environmental treaty, the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent.
    Pesticide stockpiles threaten local and regional environments and human health through contamination of soil, water, air and food. The containers have often disintegrated and chemicals that are difficult or impossible to identify are leaking into surrounding areas. 
    In one of the worst cases, 20,000 tonnes of earth in northern Mali have been contaminated with the highly toxic pesticide dieldrin, and drinking wells in this desert region are poisoned. Dieldrin is banned for both production and use under the new Stockholm treaty because of its high persistence, and ability to accumulate in human and animal tissue. In Mali, some 30 to 210 people die every year from pesticide poisoning while hundreds of others are hospitalised or suffer at home in rural areas.
    ASP will take place on a rolling programme over 12-15 years. The first phase, targeted for completion in 2006, will involve about 15 countries.

www.africastockpiles.org/pdf/partners.pdf

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 58, December 2002, page 23]